


wounds

by chiarascura



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 11:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13293555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiarascura/pseuds/chiarascura
Summary: max tends to anne's wounds. set sometime around xxxvi.





	wounds

Max isn’t a stranger to the gore and grit of cleaning wounds. All through her life, she’d witnessed more destruction and distress than she ever thought possible. Bandaging up scars of discipline and punishment and vengeance gave her a unique set of skills to clean an open wound, set a bone, stitch a gash. 

Her hands itched to fix these wounds, but her help was unwanted. Her presence, her assistance, her repentance, all unwanted. She would have to live with that. 

Regardless, she needed to try. She scratched at Anne’s door, waited patiently for a response before letting herself in quietly. 

Anne lay in the center of the mattress, a small blotch against the stark white of her sheets. She stretched her bandaged arms out away from her, facing the window across from the door, like she reached for the sea just beyond. Max knew it called to her, knew she had asked Idelle to find her a way out of the city and back to Nassau. Back to Jack. 

Max set her parcel on the table beside Anne’s bed. “May I sit?”

Anne didn’t answer. Max expected that. 

Instead, she moved to the larger table across from the bed, where she replaced the water in the pitcher, cleaned up some of the foodstuffs left out, tried to make herself useful where she could. Anne had few belongings so the room was still quite sparse, only utilitarian objects meant to ease guests of Lord and Lady Guthrie. 

Anne’s eyes burned on the back of her neck, so Max turned to meet her gaze. 

“What’re you doing here.” Her low voice made the question more of a statement, more of a threat. 

Max straightened her shoulders and exhaled. “I have acquired a healing ointment and I wanted to share it with you.”

Anne’s eyes glinted like banked coals through the semi-dark of the room. Her eyes had always been more expressive than her words, expressing the thoughts she couldn’t voice. Max relaxed her clenched jaw and met her gaze.

Anne surrendered first, shifting until she slumped against pillows at the headboard. Max crossed the room to sit at her side, heart starting to beat faster at this acquiescence. She hadn’t fully expected Anne to accept her help, had inured herself to the rejection that had become so common between them.

She opened the jar and the strength of the scent made her close her eyes as memories washed over her. The sterile scent recalled memories of whippings, of gunshot wounds, of painful accidents, of all the times she had been expected to attend to these things because she was a girl. 

A small shift of the mattress beneath her brought her back to the present, and Anne’s bright eyes stared back at her unabashedly. 

Max swallowed the memories and set the opened jar back on the table. She reached out to take Anne’s hand, and something inside her tightened as Anne offered it up willingly. Slowly, she unwound the white bandage starting at her wrist, watching as it revealed soft, white skin beneath. The bandage slowly turned brown, then red, as it peeled back layer after layer, until Anne’s hand was bare.

The wound was ugly. Thankfully it hadn’t festered, the slices clean across her palm, a good sign for healing. They were smaller than before, starting to scab over. Still, the sight made Max’s stomach turn. The knowledge that Anne had done this to herself, had clenched down on the massive shards of glass to save herself and her brothers and Jack, was almost too much to bear. Max unclenched her jaw again, made sure her hands were gentle and showed none of her inner tension. 

Anne hissed as the ointment touched her skin, and Max froze. “Are you…” She searched Anne’s face, her grimace the only sign of her distress, until Anne dipped her head. _Go on._

Max obeyed, but this time warmed the ointment in her own hand before touching Anne’s skin again. She rubbed gentle circles into her palm, infusing each motion with her love, hoping it would be enough. 

Her patient was very still. Occasionally, her fingers would twitch, but for the most part she remained silent and wary. Max felt the heat of her gaze, but knew not whether it was still the rage or something else. She kept her own gaze down, focused on her hands, memorized the weight and feel and sight of her fingers. 

After both wounds were sufficiently covered, Max slowly re-wrapped the bandage around her palm and wrist. She repeated each motion, measured and calm, on Anne’s other hand. 

She focused on Anne’s breathing, as no other sound penetrated this room, like they were the only two people in existence. Max would have it no other way. 

Too soon, she was done with that hand. Max placed it in Anne’s lap, held her palm for another extra second, two seconds, drawing the moment out as long as she could, fully aware that this could be the last. 

She raised her eyes and found Anne already looking back at her. Her mouth set in a grim line, right eye still half-swollen. Her indomitable will was clear in every line, her courage and strength and confidence gleaming in her black eyes, and Max felt herself being pulled in once again.

A noise in the hall, a servant dropping something or other, broke the spell between them. Anne startled, looked at their hands and jerked away. Heat bloomed in Max’s face and acid rose in her throat. She turned away, back to the table where she capped the jar of ointment and rose from her seat. 

“I hope that helps. I will check on it tomorrow.” The words came out without thought, as her rational mind reeled. 

Anne said nothing, and Max left.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm always looking for good maxanne and maxannejack content. hmu on tumblr [@chiiarascura](http://chiiarascura.tumblr.com)


End file.
